inhibitions
by bobtheacorn
Summary: The one where Sanji is fourteen - and absolutely pathetic.


-x-

Inhibitions

-x-

The kitchen is in an uproar over a misplaced crate of penne noodles and a shortage of red bell peppers. Sanji exhales a stream of smoke out the corner of his mouth, cigarette between his teeth, and does his best to ignore the squabbling of grown-ass men and the clatter of dishes, pots and pans _("What the hell am I supposed to use for this pasta, then? It's still on the menu!" "You're a chef, moron, figure it out!" "How do you lose twenty pounds of noodles, that's what I wanna know!")_. Sanji hikes his sleeve further up his elbow, rolling the fabric, grimacing in annoyance at having to do it again. They're too baggy for his scrawny damn arms.

He's finely dicing up vegetables - a soup to replace the pasta, _dumbasses_ \- when he sees the double doors push open out of the corner of his eye. The old geezer sticks his head and stupid hat in, shoulder leaned against the door, arms crossed.

"Hey, eggplant!" Sanji glowers at him around two other cooks, through the steam distorting his view. Zeff jerks a thumb over his shoulder and lifts his chin, hat tapping against the top of the doorframe. "Head upstairs and get yourself cleaned up. You're going to be serving the rest of the day."

Sanji sputters, "Like hell I am!"

"We've got tables that haven't ordered yet," Zeff says, in complete disregard of the outburst. He's drawn the others' attention, raising his voice like that - the kitchen quiets a few decibels, apparent solely in the fact that the bitching and arguing has stopped.

Sanji stands his ground; whatever good it'll do.

"Why am I always the one having to bus and wait tables when those cowards you hire jump ship the second things get a little rough around here, huh? Send Patty or one of these other jackasses out there, I'm busy!"

He can't really argue with Zeff's reasoning, "They'll scare off the customers." For some reason that causes laughter to spread through the kitchen, from the desert station in the back all the way up to the front. Zeff steps back out the door as grim-faced as ever, "It wasn't a request, now move your skinny ass!" and the door falls closed behind him.

Sanji slams the knife down on the cutting board, tears off the apron. He tosses it down, as well - scatters vegetables, doesn't say shit about the soup. These lazy bastards can fumble around on their own, he doesn't give a damn. The laughter has subsided enough for him to hear Patty's grinning comment to one of the others, "Sanji's face will scare the customers." It's followed by another round, hoots and yells of laughter, hands banging on surfaces as the activity picks up again. Sanji whirls around at the door, but Patty's on the opposite side of the kitchen, leering at him under the racks and through the warm, hazy air, and it's not worth the kicks Zeff will give him for tearing up the kitchen again.

He growls, _"Shut your ass, Patty, no one asked you!"_ but of fucking course, the voice he wants to pull from his chest and not his throat cracks on him - it wavers and pitches upward at the end, high enough that it's apparent and fucking embarrassing. One loud, harsh laugh is all Sanji hears before rest is lost in white noise. He wants to swallow his tongue.

His face is beet red as he kicks open the door, knocking one of the hinges loose.

A bolt pings off the opposite wall. The door swings all the way back and bangs against the wall, groans as the remaining hinge tries to support it and swing it back, and a chorus of rebukes interspersed with laughter follows Sanji down the hallway.

 _"Did you hear that?"_

 _"Our little man! He's growin' up so fast!"_

 _"No one asked yo~ou!"_

 _Fucking bastards._

Sanji scrubs both hands down the sides of his face, slick with sweat from the kitchen, but the bumps and abrasions he just can't get fucking rid of are unmistakably _there_. He fucking hates puberty. He'd rather wait the worst of it out in the kitchen where no one can fucking look at him and he can't even do that in peace. When he gets to his room he strips out of the shirt that's a full size too big, kicks off his shoes so he can pull on a pair of slacks that are an inch too short for his stupid legs and black socks so it won't be so obvious.

He doesn't even look in the mirror, blatantly avoids it while he viciously scrubs his face and paws his hair down. It's still sticking up the way that he hates by the time he's done and Sanji thinks, _Fuck! Fuck it!_ , slamming things down on the bathroom sink. Even as he buttons up a teal blue shirt and shrugs into a suit jacket - trying to ignore the way the shoulders are just too loose, the cuffs too far up his wrists - his hand is in his hair again, flattening it down over his left eye.

Over his stupid goddamn eyebrows.

He slams the door when he leaves his room, and he can still hear the amused chatter when he passes by the kitchens again. Sanji grits his teeth, but the aggravation works it way out of his throat; he groans as he descends the stairs, scrubbing his stupid, shitty face again, pushing his hands back through his hair and then balking because _it's still damp you fucking idiot, goddamnit,_ and it will do its best to stick that way.

He's parting it and mashing it back into place with one hand, climbing the stairs straight down to the Lower Deck.

Lunch is unbearable - and the evening rush is even worse.

-x-

Sanji has lost count of how many times the Chef has told him - around a few solid kicks, for no reason at all other than the emphasis his point - that he's making a mountain out of a molehill. Agonizing over something that will pass in its own time, if he'll just "simmer down". That kids his age, yes, even the girls, are just as awkward as he is and the ones that aren't he outta not worry about.

Honestly, Sanji doesn't see it.

The girls his age - they're _gorgeous._ All bashful smiles and fluttering hands, smoothing skirts across their thighs or twisting into their hair. Their voices are soft and rich, and their laughter makes his heart jump around in his chest even if he's halfway across the dining room, makes him trip and drop things and act like a damn idiot.

They're roses just starting to bud into something truly beautiful.

Sanji feels a foot too tall, skinny and conspicuous.

Three or four years down the road he'll approach a table - a woman - with easy grins and confidence. Now, he hides behind the Baratie's wide menus, behind the notepad he doesn't need for taking orders because he memorizes them all and only an idiot wouldn't be able to remember them. He sweats, and he shakes, and his shitty voice cracks, and his face burns red. His chest feels tight and his stomach gets weak and floppy - and that's just when a girl _looks_ at him.

God forbid he try to talk to one of them.

He stands at a woman's table without speaking for a minute solid before he realizes he's taken too long and made a fucking fool of himself. He bolts out of the dining hall, only to get his ass kicked by the old geezer and be sent slinking back to deliver a mumbled, flustered apology to the table cloth. The ordeal is only made worse when the woman smiles sweetly at him, calls him _honey,_ and assures him that it's fine. Sanji melts on the inside - his guts so hot it makes his knees wobble. He bends the menus in his hands, drops a full tray on his way back to the table (and hates himself for wasting food), snags the toe of his shoe on a chair leg and takes it right out from under someone on his way down.

After that, he can't stand the embarrassment. He hides on the back deck between the empty crates and garbage cans, and to hell with what that old bastard says. Sanji's hands tremble as he lights a cigarette, swearing and fumbling with the matches. He's determined to stay gone at least as long as it takes that gorgeous woman to finish her meal and leave, but it isn't long at all before he starts hearing the complaints carrying down from the open kitchen windows. A steady coil of steam and words billow out into the darkening sky.

"What the hell - these orders should'a gone out five minutes ago!"

"Where's that brat Sanji run off to?"

"Damn kid, wants to act all high and mighty in the kitchen and then thinks he's too good to take orders and serve the tables - "

"You might as well go ahead and take that out yourself, if you're so worried about it!" Carne's distinct laughter near the window makes Sanji curl his hands into fists, blunt nails biting in his palms. "Heard a woman spoke to him earlier, he's probably thrown himself overboard."

" _Haa ha!_ Poor kid, just doesn't have his sea legs yet, does he?"

"That's one way a puttin' it!"

"We should do somethin' to help the kid out - give 'im some tips or somethin'."

"Aye, it's just pathetic seein' him flounder like a hooked fish."

That's the last of it that Sanji hears, because he surges to his feet, anger boiling up and swallowing any mortification he feels at having _'floundered like a hooked fish'_ around these _incompetent jackasses._ Sanji races through the dining hall, back up the stairs two at a time. He kicks open the kitchen doors for the second time that day - busts the remaining door off it's hinges completely so that it bangs against the counter, flattening one of the cooks who just happens to be in it's path, and ricochets to the floor.

The trays and dishes on the counter rattle in protest, but the cook catches most of the door's force and saves anything from having broken. The kitchen is frozen in surprise, and Sanji snatches the out-going trays off the counter, red-faced with anger.

 _"AS IF I'D EVER ACCEPT HELP FROM ANY OF YOU BASTARDS!"_

The statement probably seems random as hell, but Sanji's rage at the idea alone helps carry him through the rest of the evening.

It's well past 10 o'clock when he finally clears the last table.

The couple was a small blessing at the end of a long and aggravating day. The woman - stunning, with ginger hair curled around her ears, and Sanji's hands sweat just thinking about those pretty hazel eyes - was too preoccupied to even spare him a glance. The guy ordered for them, so he didn't have to choke around trying to ask what she'd like. Of course, the moron ordered the wrong type of wine and appetizers to complement their main course, so Sanji adjusted the order slightly and didn't say a word about it. By then Sanji was the only one in the kitchen, the staff thinning out as the dining hall did. He made the meal himself. The changes went without protest - or notice, most likely, the guy didn't seem too savvy about his wine or overly interested in the meal in general - but Sanji nearly crushed the wine bottle in his hands at the woman's high praise.

After that he hid behind the bar, busied himself with counting the money in the register and taking stock of the alcohol, and smoked until they paid for their meal and left. Sanji stuffs the generous tip into a pocket of the apron he's strung around his waist when he buses the table. He helps himself to what that moron didn't finish of his meal before stacking the empty plates and glasses in the tray and carrying the lot back up to the kitchens. It catches him off guard when he's coming up on the kitchen doors and spots the Chef standing there.

Zeff's arms are crossed, weight resting on his foot instead of his wooden leg as he surveys the gaping doors, the loose, wonky hinges. That's his kicking stance. Sanji warily slows his pace, bites down on the butt of his cigarette. Zeff doesn't stop him from inching past into the kitchen, and he doesn't say anything, either, when Sanji starts moving the dishes into the sink and running hot water. The rest of the kitchen's still a mess, Sanji notices, glancing around at the other stations.

 _Useless bastards didn't even clean up after themselves. No self-respecting cook should leave a kitchen looking like this._

Knowing them, though, they probably left it for him on purpose.

Sanji glances at Zeff again, rolling up the too-short sleeves of his teal dress shirt so he doesn't soak them washing dishes. He pauses, catching sight of the door he kicked clean off the hinge on his way in earlier – notices, now that he looks at it around Zeff's broad frame, the boot print in the center of the wood and the crack that trails all the way down from the window at the top to the foot of the door. Zeff's got a hand on the doorframe and Sanji can see the way it's splintered where the hinge tore free, and if that doesn't make him feel like a fucking piece of shit, like scum of the goddamn earth, little else will.

The old man finally turns on him.

"What's the idea kicking in my doors like this, eggplant?" he asks, the fine line between garden-variety curious and severely annoyed. Sanji plucks a bowl out of the steaming suds and water, grabs the rag hanging around the faucet, and starts washing. "You want me to kick your head in next? There's no just hanging these back up, you know, the doors and frames'll both need to be replaced."

"Sorry."

"Hmm? What, pup, no excuses – ?"

"Don't have one."

"I can't hire someone to fix this with a measly apology – "

"I'll pay for it, alright?"

He sets another plate in the right hand sink and the rest of the dishes clatter as they settle under the weight. Zeff's wood leg clacks against the floor. He doesn't say anything for a while.

"When you're done in here, go take inventory. See if you can find the crate of noodles those fools have misplaced. And tomorrow try not to sulk around my dining room like a clump a wet seaweed." The comment makes the heat rise in Sanji's face, the anger boil up in his chest again. If his damn arms and legs weren't so long he wouldn't feel like he's going to ram them into everything all the time, wouldn't hug them in against his sides like a beanstalk. His clothes would fit in all the places they're supposed to. He wouldn't be simultaneously outgrowing everything and not quite filling it out. "I'm short a leg and I've got better posture."

Sanji bites his lip, scrubs the bowl he pulls out of the water so his hands won't shake.

"Fine. Whatever."

Sanji doesn't know how long Zeff stands there, doesn't notice when he leaves. He finishes up the dishes in the sink, lets the water out and runs more to wipe down the counters; puts everything up out of the drainers and moves on to the other stations. The next time he cuts a glance toward the doors they're empty. Once he's done in the kitchen, he lights a cigarette and surveys the damage he's done to the doors.

This restaurant is all Zeff has.

He's got no right screwing it up like this. Him especially.

Sanji tosses his apron across the back of a chair, thumbing through the money he made in tips tonight. It's just a couple hundred berries, but he's got plenty more saved up. That'll go to fixing the doors, no problem. He'd like to buy a couple more suits since he's shooting up out the ones he has. He definitely needs a new pair of shoes, these are starting to get tight and he's just starting to notice, but he'll have blisters before long and that's no good… But those will have to wait.

It's stupid to waste money on clothes that aren't going to fit right, anyway.

-x-

-BobTAC


End file.
